Restored Honus Wagner at SCP Auctions

[MattyC]

Good Lord that 7 from SCP is really mesmerizing— as someone said it is perhaps the best example of buying the holder in recent memory. I will add my lowly garbage PSA 4 to the list of examples for comparison. The investors out there who only want 7s and up are free to look down their noses at this one... This was actually an SGC 4.5 that I crossed like a moron due to my desire for uniformity in my collection. Should have stayed a 4.5, yet why let the merits of the card get in the way of good ole inter-company politics

[chriskim]

If that Ruth PSA 7 was on Heritage auction, it would have been looked a lot better with the team of photoshop experts they have. Those people can make ceases on the card disappear, in this Ruth case, enhancing the contrast/brightness and coloring should be a piece of cake.

[robertsmithnocure]

Originally Posted by chriskim

If that Ruth PSA 7 was on Heritage auction, it would have been looked a lot better with the team of photoshop experts they have. Those people can make ceases on the card disappear, in this Ruth case, enhancing the contrast/brightness and coloring should be a piece of cake.

It was in Heritage:

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball/1...ription-071515

[chriskim]

Originally Posted by robertsmithnocure

It was in Heritage:

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball/1...ription-071515

oh. my bad! I guess that card was really that bad and not even HA could do anything about it. LOL

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by chadeast

And now I feel the need to once again share my T3 Dahlen that came from Heritage this year as a warning. Heritage listing scan on the left, my scan of the same card after I received it on the right.

Their scan looks way better than yours. Did you photoshop in the creases and dull the color down?

Originally Posted by chriskim

oh. my bad! I guess that card was really that bad and not even HA could do anything about it. LOL

You think it looked bad in the pics just imagine what it looks like in hand.

[chadeast]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Their scan looks way better than yours. Did you photoshop in the creases and dull the color down?

Funny! The colors on my scan are true to life, if perhaps a touch on the duller side. But the card looks nothing like their scan, for which color saturation was clearly cranked up a ton. As for the creases, well, that's where my warning comes in. There is no scanner setting that makes those go away!

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by chadeast

Funny! The colors on my scan are true to life, if perhaps a touch on the duller side. But the card looks nothing like their scan, for which color saturation was clearly cranked up a ton. As for the creases, well, that's where my warning comes in. There is no scanner setting that makes those go away!

For the last few years, I always make it a habit to ask the seller (ebay or AH) whether the card has a crease/wrinkle. The fact is that very often, a crease or wrinkle will not show up in their scan. Very few sellers bother to disclose this critical info, and (if professionally graded) they simply state the grade # with no other description that would help out a prospective bidder.

When asked, the responses among sellers vary... about 40% will reply back with whether or not the card has a crease. Roughly 50% will simply not reply, or blow off the question (I guess they are too busy?). And the remaining 10% will write back something nasty, as if I had no right to inquire.

Needless to say, I only buy from sellers who find the time to respond.

[chadeast]

Originally Posted by chriskim

If that Ruth PSA 7 was on Heritage auction, it would have been looked a lot better with the team of photoshop experts they have. Those people can make ceases on the card disappear, in this Ruth case, enhancing the contrast/brightness and coloring should be a piece of cake.

And now I feel the need to once again share my T3 Dahlen that came from Heritage this year as a warning. Heritage listing scan on the left, my scan of the same card after I received it on the right.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Good Lord that 7 from SCP is really mesmerizing— as someone said it is perhaps the best example of buying the holder in recent memory. I will add my lowly garbage PSA 4 to the list of examples for comparison. The investors out there who only want 7s and up are free to look down their noses at this one... This was actually an SGC 4.5 that I crossed like a moron due to my desire for uniformity in my collection. Should have stayed a 4.5, yet why let the merits of the card get in the way of good ole inter-company politics

Putting aside the issue of (IMO) the utter inability of TPG to detect alterations, what is perhaps sadder is the criteria used to arrive at a grade. Wasn't the whole idea behind TPG to establish an unbiased rating system that reflects how a typical collector would view a card's condition? It would seem to me that paramount among the relevant criteria used to rate the card would be how the card looks. Yet that doesn't seem to matter much at all, which is incredible. Yes, I get it that attempting to rate something based on a subjective criteria such as aesthetic appeal interjects subjectivity into the process. But how can one say subjectivity is not already integral to the process? At the end of day a number appears on the flip, which is supposed to reflect the sum total of all various criteria used to evaluate a card's condition. But when the result is what the current system often churns out -- a much higher grade for the card with the much lower aesthetic appeal, card registry or not, the system is wacko.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Putting aside the issue of (IMO) the utter inability of TPG to detect alterations, what is perhaps sadder is the criteria used to arrive at a grade. Wasn't the whole idea behind TPG to establish an unbiased rating system that reflects how a typical collector would view a card's condition? It would seem to me that paramount among the relevant criteria used to rate the card would be how the card looks. Yet that doesn't seem to matter much at all, which is incredible. Yes, I get it that attempting to rate something based on a subjective criteria such as aesthetic appeal interjects subjectivity into the process. But how can one say subjectivity is not already integral to the process? At the end of day a number appears on the flip, which is supposed to reflect the sum total of all various criteria used to evaluate a card's condition. But when the result is what the current system often churns out -- a much higher grade for the card with the much lower aesthetic appeal, card registry or not, the system is wacko.

Agree - plus, we don't even have a single, agreed upon set of grading standards for the hobby as a whole. We've foolishly let the individual TPGs each decide what they think, not what the hobby collectors think, when it comes to grading. And then throw in a registry that one portion of the collecting community appears to downright worship, and you've got a setting for all the perceived negative things that have occured in the hobby since grading began.

One of the main reasons independent card grading was originally started was to counter perceived abuses by sellers allegedly not properly and honestly representing the condition of cards they were selling, if they were altered in some way, or if the cards were even authentic to begin with. Independent grading by TPGs was supposed to counter that. Unfortunately, the old saying can often be true, and sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease......................!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by BobC

Agree - plus, we don't even have a single, agreed upon set of grading standards for the hobby as a whole. We've foolishly let the individual TPGs each decide what they think, not what the hobby collectors think, when it comes to grading. And then throw in a registry that one portion of the collecting community appears to downright worship, and you've got a setting for all the perceived negative things that have occured in the hobby since grading began.

One of the main reasons independent card grading was originally started was to counter perceived abuses by sellers allegedly not properly and honestly representing the condition of cards they were selling, if they were altered in some way, or if the cards were even authentic to begin with. Independent grading by TPGs was supposed to counter that. Unfortunately, the old saying can often be true, and sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease......................!

Unfortunately, most collectors think what they're told to think.
In this hobby, either by Beckett, or by someone who learned from Beckett.
The grading companies standards are pretty much the same.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by steve B

Unfortunately, most collectors think what they're told to think.
In this hobby, either by Beckett, or by someone who learned from Beckett.
The grading companies standards are pretty much the same.

Yes for the most part the standards are somewhat the same, as you say, but there are still perceived and apparently actual differences in how much of an effect and weight one TPG will give to certain card defects and issues versus another. And thus, though these grading standards are sometimes close, they are not all exactly the same. IMO what would be best for the hobby community as a whole would be if the standards were all exactly the same, which they aren't.

Why else would you sometimes see threads on this forum asking for advice on which TPG to send a card to for grading, and different people responding that if it has these types of issues/defects to send it to this TPG, but if it has different issues/defects to send it to a that other TPG, and so forth. And not all the TPGs will even grade certain cards and issues (Fro-Joys, S-74s, etc.), indicating further differences amongst them in how they look to review, authenticate, and grade items.

With the overwhelming effects the pandemic has had on the hobby in general, and specifically on how the TPGs have operated and been affected, you don't currently see threads like that asking about which TPG to send cards to because of the specific issues/defects they have. Now the threads have been focusing on and asking questions like which TPG is even accepting submissions right now where they won't need a second mortgage to pay for the grading fees, and they can actually get their cards back in less than a year. The current focus on the questions now being asked about differences amongst TPGs may have changed for now, but all the differences, including grading standards, are still there.